Photographing Plants and Flowers

Rating:
Summary: How To Capture the Beauty of Flowers
Review: Photographing Plants and Flowers by Paul Harcourt Davies belongs on the shelf of amateur and professional photographers for many reasons. It contains valuable information for photographing plants in both natural and manipulated settings. His photographs are very sharp and contain hints for photographing nearly every type of plant and flower imaginable. The stunning photographs alone make the book worth the purchase. He is able to create beautiful images from plants and flowers many people would miss. Though the book is primarily for photographers who still use film, it does contain some information on digital photography and using Photoshop. The book is inspiring, and more than likely readers will want to put the book down as quickly as possible and shoot some flowers.

Rating:
Summary: An disorganized book
Review: Taking good pictures of flowers is a specialty, and any help that a photographer can get in pursuing this endeavor is useful. Davies offers his ideas and pictures in a series of two page spreads. Some of these deal with particular families of flowers and environments and others with particular techniques applicable to flower photography. The book is profusely illustrated with the author's photos.

There is probably a great deal of useful information here but its presentation is rather haphazard. The headings of each section don't give much help since they don't appear to have any organizing principle. Then, useful information may be buried deep within a paragraph dealing with an unlikely topic. There is a technical appendix that contains short, concise discussions of technical issues, but makes no reference to any photos. There is also a section on image manipulation that covers digital processing, with emphasis on the use of Photoshop, but this section is too brief to be of any practical use.

I prefer a more organized approach to a subject. This helps the photographer to form a checklist in his own mind. For example most books on a genre of photography include a section on composition. Davies sprinkles little composition rules throughout the book but in a manner that does not contribute to a comprehensive approach to composition.

Sometimes the author gives apparently contradictory advice, often within the same paragraph. For example in a discussion of berries he suggests using both a mid-range zoom lens and a wide-angle lens for photos, offering instances where each would be appropriate. But the photos he includes to illustrate the different length lenses appear to be much the same.

Another weakness is that he doesn't deal at all with some major problems of flower photography. For example, one of the major problems of photographing flowers in a natural environment is movement created by the wind. There are methods that can be used to deal with this factor, but none of them are covered by the author.

Although not aimed exclusively at flower photographers, I found John Shaw's "Nature Photography Field Guide" to be far more useful. In a dozen pages on close up photography Shaw covers more ground than this entire book.

If you are prepared to go through this book slowly, perhaps making notes as you go, and carefully studying the many flower pictures offered by Davies, you may find this book useful. If you want an organized approach to flower photography, search elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: An disorganized book
Review: Taking good pictures of flowers is a specialty, and any help that a photographer can get in pursuing this endeavor is useful. Davies offers his ideas and pictures in a series of two page spreads. Some of these deal with particular families of flowers and environments and others with particular techniques applicable to flower photography. The book is profusely illustrated with the author's photos.

There is probably a great deal of useful information here but its presentation is rather haphazard. The headings of each section don't give much help since they don't appear to have any organizing principle. Then, useful information may be buried deep within a paragraph dealing with an unlikely topic. There is a technical appendix that contains short, concise discussions of technical issues, but makes no reference to any photos. There is also a section on image manipulation that covers digital processing, with emphasis on the use of Photoshop, but this section is too brief to be of any practical use.

I prefer a more organized approach to a subject. This helps the photographer to form a checklist in his own mind. For example most books on a genre of photography include a section on composition. Davies sprinkles little composition rules throughout the book but in a manner that does not contribute to a comprehensive approach to composition.

Sometimes the author gives apparently contradictory advice, often within the same paragraph. For example in a discussion of berries he suggests using both a mid-range zoom lens and a wide-angle lens for photos, offering instances where each would be appropriate. But the photos he includes to illustrate the different length lenses appear to be much the same.

Another weakness is that he doesn't deal at all with some major problems of flower photography. For example, one of the major problems of photographing flowers in a natural environment is movement created by the wind. There are methods that can be used to deal with this factor, but none of them are covered by the author.

Although not aimed exclusively at flower photographers, I found John Shaw's "Nature Photography Field Guide" to be far more useful. In a dozen pages on close up photography Shaw covers more ground than this entire book.

If you are prepared to go through this book slowly, perhaps making notes as you go, and carefully studying the many flower pictures offered by Davies, you may find this book useful. If you want an organized approach to flower photography, search elsewhere.